By Alesha Capone
Labor politician Joanne Ryan has comfortably retained the seat of Lalor after last weekend’s federal election.
On Monday, with more than three quarters of the votes counted, Ms Ryan held 52.13 per cent (40,299 votes) of first-preference votes, a swing of 0.43 per cent to Labor since the last federal election.
Liberal Party candidate Gayle Murphy held 30.20 per cent (23,346) of first preference votes.
The Greens candidate Jay Dessi, who quit the election race after the ballot papers were printed, held 7.55 per cent (5834) of the first preference votes.
United Australia Party candidate Jeffrey Edward Robinson held 4.58 per cent (3542 votes) of the first preference votes and Australia First Party candidate Sue Jakobi held 4.35 per cent (3362 votes).
On a two-party preferred basis, between Labor and the Liberals, Ms Ryan received 62.38 per cent (48,219) of the votes and Mr Murphy 37.62 per cent (29,083) of the votes.
This accounted for a 1.81 per cent swing towards the Liberals since the previous federal election.
On Sunday morning, Ms Ryan posted on her official Facebook page that she was “humbled to be re-elected to continue to represent our community in the Federal Parliament”.
“I will continue to work every day to serve our communities best interests,” she wrote.
Lalor includes Werribee, Hoppers Crossing, Tarneit, Truganina and parts of Point Cook.
Other parts of Point Cook, along with Williams Landing, are covered by the seat of Gellibrand, where Labor MP Tim Watts has been returned with 65.3 per cent (52,647) of the two-candidate preferred vote, beating the Liberals’ Anthony Mitchell on 27,934 votes with 75.25 per cent of votes counted.
Mr Watts polled 49.51 per cent (39,892) of the primary vote, representing a 3.28 per cent swing to Labor.
On primary votes, Mr Mitchell received 28.99 per cent (23,358), followed by The Greens’ Bernadette Thomas on 16.09 per cent (12,962) and United Australia Party’s Lisa Bentley on 5.42 per cent (4369).
-By Alesha Capone and Goya Dmytryshchak
